Been a boring year for TSP investment. I mean, it was hard to lose money and decisions were easy. Decided to 'let her ride' for most of the year and ended up quite well.
So well in fact that:
That no longer small number on the left side of my TSP balance rotated up Thursday!!!
I had a phone conference with Edelman Financial on Thursday. It was really a great discussion and I learned quite a bit. A full plan will be presented this coming Wednesday. He told me that my allocation was great and my contribution allocation was perfect. I have to work a bit to break down the profit from the house purchase and my insurance needs may not be quite met so Wednesday should be informational. All in all, I highly recommend them.
Well, a fullish plan was presented - and things look great. I am signing up with Edelman Financial.
Our investment philosophies are very similar - they should be, I kinda ripped my three allocation models right off his website:laugh:. Anyway, without directly addressing my three portfolio strategy, the adviser stated that I was perfectly set on allocation and contribution and that anything from a 60%/40% equity/bond split through 75%/25% split was good to go. Well, that is the range of my three allocations... He is recommending the aggressive allocation for the investable assets from the sale of my house since I will not be touching that money for a decade or more. Without me even signing on he gave me the fund breakdown - which is kinda risky and obviously he knew it. It is awesome. I will be able to invest in some of the Dimensional Fund ETFs which are only available to large investors - and, I ain't large (don't go there
). I will not present that ETF allocation because it is probably proprietary and could get me in lock up!!! But, it would generally map to 7%/12%/22%/18%/14% G/F/C/S/I and a mess at 17% that I cannot really map to TSP.
An oddity, but cool. Because I made a purty profit in the sale I am short term wealthy. He is recommending that I max out my TSP contributions and just hold back the difference in a cash account to cover it. Cool. Get the money invested early so it grows the max amount, hope the wifey thang gets a job and can start supporting my contribution habbit or start up her own, or just do it for a year or two. All good. And, he calculated a full year of buffer money to hold as well. Leaving a very decent lump for a down payment on a house here in North Cacilaki.
Third, a very detailed retirement income plan was presented that incorporates all our income streams. Very, very conservatively incorporates them. For example, he is using the Social Security income on the current statement - not inflation adjusted. He did the same on my Federal FERS pension - and did not incorporate a COLA. In the end, to live on an income stream equal to our current all I need is a 5.5% return. And, OMG, that is NOT after inflation which he is assuming to be 3%. Yowser, just 2.5% over inflation. My long term IRR is 8.5%. I think I can get at least a 5.5% return.\
The remaining thing to deal with is insurance. I have been on vacation and I don't think I can access the portal outside the .mil domain. Not exactly certain what my life insurance benefits are. They were good to go when set. He will review those number and offer suggestions.
Awesome experience, highly recommended. And, as you probably have noted, I am not a Noob when it comes to financial planning. I was good to go and without any real problems. For me this process just adds a bit and gives me more knowledge. Plus it will let me off-site some of this to a good team when I retire in a decade or so.